"Of course it is."
"It is excellent furniture," I continued, looking round and appraising it quickly in my mind's eye: "it shall be part of our capital."
"My dear child, our capital? What do you mean?"
"We will take a house in Bloomsbury, put the furniture in, and have paying guests."
"West, are you mad? Do you remember who I am—Mrs. Wickham, the widow of—or no, I never will allow that word—the wife of your dear, dear, noble father."
"Father would approve of this," I answered. "He was a brave man and died fighting, just as I mean to die fighting. You are shocked at the idea to-night, mother, because it is fresh to you, but in a week's time you will grow accustomed to it, you will take an interest in it, you will even like it. I, bury myself in the country and starve!—no, no, no, I could not do it. Mother, darling, I am your slave, your devoted slave, your own most loving girl, but don't, don't ask me to vegetate in the country. It would kill me—it would kill me."
I had dropped on my knees now and taken both her hands in mine, and I spoke with great excitement, and even passion.
"Don't stir for a moment," said mother; "how like your father you look! Just the same eyes, and that straight sort of forehead, and the same expression round your lips. If your father were alive he would love you for being brave."
As mother looked at me I think she forgot for the moment the terrible plunge we were about to make into the work-a-day strata of society, but the next instant the horrid fact was brought back to her, for Paul, our pretty little page, brought in a sheaf of letters on a salver. Of course they were unpaid bills. Mother said sadly—
"Put them with the others, Westenra."